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The  pleasant  art 
of  getting  your 
own  library 


DISTRIBUTED  BY  LIBRARY 

V/V/  Peoples  Gas  §*dg. 

Betc.e  you  th.ovv  this  gift  aside 
Tluoh  ever  what  you  read  inside 
| ft  7 P ;:  j so  /.hing  that  might  pay 
to  hove  hand  some  future  day. 


By  John  Cotton  Dana 
Librarian  Free  Public  Library 
Newark  New  Jersey 


Copyright  1916  by 
Syndicate  Trading  Company 


; oTe'i.O 


02/1.  ¥3 

Dl  (a8  ? 


Presented  with  the  compliments  of 
CARSON  PIRIE  SCOTT  & COMPANY 
CHICAGO 


The  pleasant  art  of 
getting  your  own  library 

Buy  some  books 

Everyone  should  buy  books.  By  that  I 
mean:  every  person  of  intelligence,  able  to 
read  ordinary  print  with  some  ease,  will 
find  that  the  habit  of  owning  books,  and 
having  them  about  him,  will  give  him  more 
pleasure  in  the  long  run  than  any  other 
habit  he  can  form.  Only  a few  buy  and 
read  books,  to  be  sure ; but  then,  only  a few 
get  out  of  life  all  the  pleasure  they  are 
capable  of  getting.  So  the  small  number  of 
the  bookish  does  not  prove  anything  except 
that  the  wise  are  always  few! 

But  if  I don’t  read? 

But  you  may  say  you  rarely  read  books, 
and  so  why  buy  any? 

To  this  there  are  several  answers.  One 
is  that  books  make  fine  furnishings.  They 
do  good  to  the  room  they  stand  in.  They 
give  your  house  an  air,  and  you  are  obliged 
to  breathe  that  air. 

Then,  too,  they  are  tempting.  Who 
knows  when  you  will  yield  to  the  tempta- 
tion to  enjoy  books  if  they  are  always  at 
hand? 

And,  again:  there  are  family  and  friends; 
perhaps  they  will  bless  you  for  giving  them 


5 


a chance  at  pleasures  which  you  miss 
yourself. 

And,  again : buying  books  is  a joyful  task, 
and  you  cannot  give  your  mind  to  it  for 
ever  so  short  a time  each  week  or  month, 
when  you  select  the  next  volume  for  your 
shelves,  without  getting  a subtle  pleasure 
much  beyond  that  of  choosing  a cravat  or 
another  picture  or  a new  brand  of  cigars. 

And  one  more:  all  book-buyers  are  book- 
ish, even  if  they  never  read  a single  line  in 
their  books.  You  meet  followers  of  book 
fads,  first  editions,  American  history,  16th 
century  poetry  or  what  not,  who  will  tell 
you  they  buy  but  do  not  read.  Don’t  be- 
lieve them.  They  may  not  read  what  they 
collect ; but  you  may  be  sure  they  have  their 
own  private  bookish  tipples,  in  which  they 
quietly  indulge  and  out  of  which  they  get  a 
mild  but  penetrating  literary  intoxication. 

But  here  are  reasons  enough.  The  point 
is  proven.  It  pays  to  buy  books. 

What  books  shall  I buy? 

Buy  what  you  like.  It’s  the  same  rule, 
you  see,  as  the  Great  Rule  about  Reading! 
Often  one  knows  the  kind  of  books  he  likes, 
when  he  reads  them ; but  does  not  know  how 
to  find  more  of  that  kind. 

You  easily  get  around  this  trouble  by  ask- 
ing your  book-dealer.  You  will  tell  him 


that  you  like  this  book  and  that  book  and 
the  other,  and  that  you  want  to  find  more 
of  the  same  kind.  The  dealer  makes  a 
pretty  good  guess  at  what  is  wanted  and 
sets  out  for  you  a dozen  or  a score  of  vol- 
umes for  you  to  taste  and  choose  from.  In 
this  way  you  buy  quite  safely,  and  so  do  not 
cumber  your  shelves  with  books  that  are  not 
in  your  line. 

Or,  you  may  say  you  want  books  of  such 
a kind  that,  if  you  read  them  you  will  be 
informed  on  certain  lines  in  which  you  are 
interested.  Here  the  dealer’s  task  is  easier. 
He  can  give  you  names,  authors,  publishers 
and  prices  of  the  best  books  on  the  subjects 
you  have  in  mind,  and  can  tell  you  which 
are  elementary,  which  are  accurate  but  dry, 
which  are  general  but  interesting;  and,  if 
the  subject  is  one  with  two  sides  to  it,  which 
are  the  best  books  on  each  side. 

The  librarian  of  your  public  library  will 
also  be  able  to  help  you  greatly.  The  library 
of  course  has  more  variety  of  books  than  any 
book-dealer  can  afford  to  carry.  By  look- 
ing over  the  books  which  the  librarian  will 
show  you,  you  can  decide  what  you  want 
and  can  have  your  dealer  order  them  for 
you. 

Shall  I buy  many  books  at  once? 

Sometimes,  yes.  Suppose  you  have  moved 
into  a good-sized  house  from  the  cramped 


7 


quarters  you  have  always  lived  in;  suppose 
the  children  are  come  to  the  reading  age; 
suppose  your  business  is  a little  less  pressing 
and  in  your  evenings  you  are  a little  less 
weary — why  then  is  the  time  to  buy  books 
by  the  yard.  You  know  what  are  the  sub- 
jects to  read  about,  and  so  does  your  wife. 
Both  of  you  know  the  kinds  of  novels  you 
enjoy.  Also  you  are  sure  you  want  the  chil- 
dren to  see  on  the  shelves  and  to  handle  and 
look  into  and  get  acquainted  with  the  good 
old  books  that  they  will  later  hear  intelli- 
gent people  mention,  that  they  will  find 
mention  of  in  their  reading,  and  that  they 
will  be  meeting  in  their  studies  as  they  go 
through  school  and  college.  In  such  a case 
the  selection  is  easy,  and  to  buy  hundreds  of 
books  in  the  first  winter  would  not  be  ex- 
travagant or  foolish. 

Shall  I get  a big  dictionary? 

When  the  time  comes,  yes.  But  first  get 
books  that  you  or  your  family  or  both  like  to 
read.  If  there  are  children  about  you  will 
find  they  use  dictionaries  in  school,  and  you 
will  wish  to  keep  ahead  of  them  by  having 
a pretty  good  dictionary  at  home.  If  the 
family  has  the  habit  of  talking  about  words 
and  their  exact  meaning  and  how  to  pro- 
nounce, get  a dictionary  surely. 


8 


But  you  can  begin  with  quite  a small  one. 
Some  of  the  small  ones  are  very  good  and 
vastly  interesting  to  look  into. 

At  your  dealer's  you  can  see  one  or  two 
of  the  big  ones,  many  of  the  small  ones,  and 
can  learn  about  the  rest.  At  the  library  you 
will  find  nearly  all  the  dictionaries.  Buy 
the  kind  that  suits  your  needs. 

Shall  I buy  an  encyclopaedia? 

If  you  are  the  encyclopaedia  kind  of  per- 
son, yes.  And  when  the  children  begin  to 
pass  the  ten-year  mark  you  should  have  one 
for  them  to  pull  down  and  handle  as  they 
will.  But  it  is  easy  to  waste  good  book 
money  on  an  encyclopaedia.  There  are  many 
kinds,  and  the  best  one  for  you  is  the  one, 
that,  among  those  you  can  afford,  you  will 
use  most.  Some  are  for  young  people ; some 
are  for  students;  some  are  for  average  peo- 
ple with  small  incomes;  some  are  for  the 
well-to-do.  In  thousands  of  homes  are  non- 
fitting encyclopaedias  taking  up  good  shelf 
room  that  entertaining  novels  might  much 
better  occupy. 

Your  dealer  has  or  can  get  all  the  good 
encyclopaedias  large  and  small;  he  also  has 
much  information  on  sizes,  kinds,  bindings 
and  cost. 

What  shall  I say  to  book  agents? 

Traveling  agents  have  persuaded  many  to 
buy  books  who  would  never  have  bought 


9 


them  otherwise,  and  in  this  way  they  are 
helpful.  But  they  almost  never  have  any- 
thing that  you  cannot  get  cheaper  at  a store. 
Most  of  the  things  they  offer  are  not  what 
you  really  care  for.  Nearly  all  their  “fine 
editions”  are  poor  imitations  of  the  real 
thing. 

Since  the  recent  disclosures  as  to  the  real 
value  of  some  of  the  so-called  de  luxe  sets 
the  bookstores  have  taken  over  these  books 
and  offered  them  for  sale  at  fair  prices — 
often,  indeed,  at  prices  ridiculously  low. 

Treat  the  book  agent  kindly;  wish  him 
well  in  what  is  usually  a perfectly  proper 
business,  but  tell  him  you  buy  your  books 
at  stores. 

Which  are  the  books  for  me? 

You  speak  of  choosing  your  friends.  You 
mean  that,  as  you  meet  new  people  and  come 
to  know  them,  you  naturally  pick  out  those 
who  appeal  to  you,  who  don’t  bore  you,  who 
help  you  to  pass  a pleasant  evening  now  and 
then,  who  have  something  new  to  say,  who 
help  you  to  see  things  differently  and  make 
life  more  entertaining.  You  don’t  pick  these 
friends  on  sight,  and  you  don’t  select  them 
on  somebody’s  recommendation.  You  get  to 
know  them  first  and  then  hold  to  them  if 
you  like  them. 

Find  your  own  books  in  the  same  way. 


10 


The  process  is  easier  with  books  than  it  is 
with  men  and  women.  Of  books  you  can 
get  careful  descriptions,  from  which  you  can 
often  tell  which  of  them  you  will  like.  It 
is  also  much  easier  to  examine  a book  than  it 
is  a possible  new  friend.  The  book  is  all 
there,  in  sight. 

You  pick  your  friends  out  of  those  who 
live  and  work  much  as  you  do.  You  will 
find  the  books  you^want  to  read  in  much 
the  same  way. 

If  you  have  not  the  book-buying  habit  at 
all  and  think  you  may  like  to  work  into  it 
on  some  special  lines,  where  do  you  want  to 
begin  ? 


You  work  at  something?  Buy  books  on  that 
something 

Start  in  your  own  business.  Whatever  it 
is,  it  has  an  interesting  history;  there  is 
romance  connected  with  it  somewhere, 
surely,  and  probably  also  art,  and  very 
likely  politics  and  war  and  strange  adven- 
tures. 

For  example,  shoes.  There  are  museums 
of  shoes.  There  are  histories  of  shoes  and 
books  about  shoes  and  famous  and  learned 
cobblers  and  shoemakers.  All  the  long  story 
of  the  invention  and  development  of  pro- 
tection for  the  feet  is  full  of  curious,  enter- 
taining and  amazing  items. 


And  the  literature  today  of  leather  and  of 
all  the  other  materials  that  go  into  shoes  and 
of  the  machines  that  make  them  and  of  their 
distribution  through  the  trade — of  all  this 
the  literature  includes  hundreds  of  books  of 
every  conceivable  kind,  scientific,  technical, 
commercial,  biographical,  historical.  If  you 
are  in  shoes,  try  a few  of  these  books. 

The  same  facts  and  the  same  suggestions 
apply  to  every  calling. 

From  daily  papers  to  house  books 

You  must  read  the  daily  papers;  then  you 
need  to  read  a few  magazines  of  the  popular 
kind  and  get  short  stories  of  modern  life  and 
to  keep  up  on  inventions,  discoveries  and 
what  not;  then  you  must  look  over  your 
own  trade  papers,  one,  two,  or  even  more — 
and  there  is  still  time  left  for  buying  and 
reading  a few  good  books  on  your  own  call- 
ing. 

Next,  perhaps,  first,  get  some  books  use- 
ful in  the  house.  Books  on  cooking,  furni- 
ture, decoration,  music,  dress,  entertain- 
ments, games,  hygiene  and,  if  there  are  chil- 
dren, on  their  health  and  training;  on  their 
sports  and  pastimes. 

On  all  of  these  and  a score  of  other  like 
subjects  there  are  encyclopaedias  large  and 
small,  hand-books,  manuals,  guides,  com- 
pendiums,  treatises  and  histories.  Of  these 
household  books,  many  of  them  most  enter- 


12 


taining  and  most  of  them  helpful,  how  few 
are  found  in  homes!  Even  of  cook  books 
the  supply  is  usually  limited!  If  in  doubt, 
then,  about  how  to  fill  your  new  book- 
shelves begin  with  your  own  calling  and  go 
on  to  the  everyday  demands  of  the  house. 

Branch  out  and  take  in  the  two  Americas 

As  for  books  on  life  and  the  world  in  gen- 
eral, here  are  two  good  ways  to  begin: 

First,  sit  down  with  this  list  and  con- 
sider whether  books  on  any  of  these  subjects 
would  interest  you : 

History  of  the  great  cities  of  the  United 
States . 

History  of  your  own  State . 

Politics . 

Industries . 

Birds,  insects , trees,  shrubs,  flowers,  ani- 
mals. 

Rocks,  soils,  minerals,  mines. 

Farms  and  farming. 

Railroads,  canals,  water  commerce. 

Roads  of  your  own  State  or  sister  States. 

Maps  of  your  own  State  or  other  States. 

On  all  of  these,  and  on  the  same  subjects 
concerning  the  United  States  you  can  find, 
at  the  bookstore  or  at  the  library,  books ; also 
pamphlets  and  pictures. 


13 


Then  look  over  this  list: 

Our  foreign  trade. 

The  Panama  Canal. 

Mexico , Central  America,  Peru,  Brazil ; 
and  the  development  and  trade  relations 
with  our  country  of  these  and  other  South 
American  countries. 

Canada,  its  growth  and  our  trade  with  it. 

The  far  Northwest  and  the  wonderful 
development  of  Oregon  and  Washington. 

The  Hudson,  the  Ohio,  the  Mississippi, 
the  Columbia,  the  Great  Lakes,  the  romance 
of  their  discovery  and  the  wonders  of  their 
commerce. 

The  story  of  wheat,  of  corn,  of  cotton 
and  the  rivalries  of  the  world's  greatest 
grain-producing  countries. 

The  tariff. 

Our  navy ; our  army. 

On  a thousand  things  like  these,  about 
which  you  find  brief  notes  in  the  papers 
every  day,  there  are  many  books,  some 
short,  some  long,  some  statistical,  some  nar- 
rative, and  fascinating.  If  you  want  these 
in  your  own  library,  your  book-dealer  will 
get  them  for  you. 

Then  take  in  the  world 

If  nothing  so  far  named  has  seemed  to  ap- 
peal to  you,  go  a little  further  with  the  list. 
Perhaps  you  say  that  your  newspapers  and 


14 


magazines  give  you  all  you  care  to  know  on 
subjects  like  these.  That  may  be  true.  But 
a trial  of  a book,  by  a man  who  knows  what 
he  writes  about,  will  convince  you  that  after 
all  most  journals  only  touch  the  outside  of 
things.  They  cannot  pretend  to  do  more. 
Their  editors  give  you  a little  of  many 
things  and  not  much  of  any  one,  except  local 
news. 

Here  are  a few  suggested  topics: 

Flying  machines,  dirigible  balloons  and 
submarines . 

Great  fortunes,  trusts  and  labor  unions. 

Socialism,  communism,  anarchism . 

Painting,  cubists,  futurists,  sculpture,  art, 
museums,  architecture. 

The  history  of  the  alphabet,  of  writing, 
of  printing. 

Printing  today,  its  marvelous  machines 
and  how  their  product  grows. 

How  we  think. 

The  mind  and  the  body. 

Materialism,  pantheism,  monotheism, 
pragmatism. 

Bergeonism,  spiritism,  monism,  positivism. 

Education  in  Egypt,  Greece,  Rome, 
China. 

Public  schools  in  America,  England,  Ger- 
many, France. 


15 


The  origin  of  language . 

Astrology,  necromancy,  alchemy,  chem- 
istry. 

Myths,  legends,  fairy  tales,  superstitions. 

Fire,  electricity,  light,  heat,  power. 

What  we  mean  by  science. 

These  items  are  only  the  merest  sugges- 
tion of  the  thousands  of  topics  of  which 
your  bookstore  can  furnish  you  many  books 
and  tell  you  of  many  others. 

Take  Egypt  for  example;  you  know 
something  of  its  history,  of  the  Nile  and  its 
dams,  the  pyramids,  the  temple  just  found 
in  the  Sphinx's  head;  of  its  government  by 
the  English  and  its  recent  growth.  Leaving 
all  these  to  one  side,  here  is  a little  book  on 
what  Egypt  did  for  civilization;  brief,  fas- 
cinating, astonishing  and  reliable.  They 
were  doing  great  things  in  Egypt  6000 
years  ago. 

You  can,  under  this  first  method  of  find- 
ing a starting  point  for  book  buying,  either 
go  over  lists  like  those  given  above,  or  you 
can  go  over  in  your  mind  the  topics  you  find 
in  your  daily  and  Sunday  papers  and  jot 
down  some  subjects  on  which  you  think  you 
may  like  to  see  a few  of  the  best  and  latest 
books.  Send  this  list  to  the  library  or  book 
store  and  later  call  and  see  what  they  can 
show  you.  Then  get  your  dealer  to  get  for 
you  what  you  want. 


16 


Another  way  of  finding  your  books 

Get  lists  of  some  of  the  series  of  small 
books  on  all  kinds  of  subjects  that  are  now 
being  published  in  England  and  America. 
Single  volumes  cost,  bound,  only  25  to  50 
cents.  The  several  series  include  books  on 
hundreds  of  topics.  There  are  “literary” 
books  in  plenty — novels,  stories,  poetry, 
plays,  essays,  letters,  humor,  with  the  best 
histories,  biographies  and  travels  and  the 
great  books  on  science,  religion,  art,  phil- 
osophy and  society. 

Others  are  on  subjects  like  these,  each 
written  by  a man  who  knows : 

Evolution . 

Heredity. 

Science  of  the  stars. 

Synonyms. 

W ellington  and  Waterloo. 

The  Nature  of  Mathematics. 

Theosophy. 

Syndicalism. 

Co-operation. 

W omen  s Suffrage. 

Principles  of  Electricity. 

Look  at  these  lists  yourself,  and  pass  them 
about  in  the  home. 

Some  in  the  family  are  just  now  keen  on 
boats,  toy  flying  machines,  tennis,  football, 
wireless  telegraphy,  school  hygiene,  housing, 


17 


photography,  the  stage,  motor  cars,  gas  en- 
gines, moving  pictures,  dress,  rugs,  laces. 

Wouldn’t  they  like  a book  or  two  on  their 
pet  subjects? 

The  fundamental  family  library 

Now  you  have  a library.  It  is  yours  and 
your  family’s,  and  it  fits  you  all  like  an  old 
glove,  because  you  have  put  into  it  what  you 
wanted,  and  not  what  somebody  said  you 
ought  to  want.  You  have  bought  according 
to  your  own  and  your  family’s  taste,  educa- 
tion and  amusements.  Your  library  contains 
the  world’s  best  books — the  best  for  you;  at 
least  it  does  so  far  as  you  have  gone.  Only 
prigs  and  pretenders  will  find  fault  with  it, 
even  if  it  has  not  one  of  the  old  masters  you 
were  tortured  with  in  school  days  and  have 
joyfully  avoided  ever  since. 

How  about  the  great  classics? 

Well,  what  about  them?  Have  you  read 
them?  Have  you  read  any  of  them?  Did 
you  like  them?  If  you  bought  a hundred  of 
them  would  you  hurry  home  every  night  to 
read  them? 

You  must  answer  these  questions  your- 
self. If  you  like  them,  then  they  are  your 
books,  and  you  bought  them  long  ago.  If 
you  are  very,  very  literary,  you  have  already 
read  them  whether  you  liked  them  or  not. 


18 


If  you  wish  to  know  how  some  of  the  great- 
est of  our  fellow-men  looked  at  life  and  how 
they  described  what  they  saw  and  felt  and 
thought,  then  you  must  read  some  of  these 
world’s  greatest. 

Biographies 

But  don’t  forget  that  many  of  your  great- 
est fellowmen  never  wrote  at  all ! They  did 
things,  and  said  nothing  for  publication. 
(It’s  the  same  way  today!)  And  while  it 
is  true,  probably,  that  the  writing  of  the 
great  things  in  a great  way  is  the  greatest 
of  all  the  things  men  have  done,  these  great- 
est of  all  things — the  World’s  Classics — 
may  not  enlighten  you,  may  not  give  you 
joy;  would  only  bore  you,  and  there  is  a 
very  fine  and  delightful  and  amazing  and 
absorbing  lot  of  life  awaiting  you  quite  out- 
side of  the  covers  of  the  Truly  Great.  If 
you  are  interested  in  what  men  of  action 
have  done,  read  the  story  of  their  lives. 
There  are  many  interesting  biographies,  and 
some  of  them  are  extremely  good  literature. 

More  about  the  classics 

A short  plea,  which  could  be  made  longer 
and  stronger,  for  some  acquaintance  with 
the  Great  Old  Books  is  worth  adding. 

A few  of  the  old  books  were  so  well  writ- 
ten or  told  of  such  interesting  things  or 


19 


were  so  closely  connected  with  popular 
mythologies  and  religion  or  with  great  lead- 
ers or  reformers,  or  warriors,  or  adventures, 
or  with  great  national  events,  that  they  came 
to  be  read  or  talked  about  by  many,  and  es- 
pecially by  those  who  wrote,  because  they 
truly  found  the  incidents  and  the  things  said 
in  the  earlier  books  to  be  interesting  in  them- 
selves, genuinely  human  and  wonderfully 
and  universally  true  to  life  and  very  admir- 
ably told. 

Thus  it  came  about  that  books  of  all 
kinds,  except  perhaps  the  driest  descriptive 
ones,  are  constantly  referring  to  things  in 
the  Old  Classics.  Now,  if  you  know 
enough  about  the  old  books  to  get  the  mean- 
ing of  these  countless  references  to  them  in 
the  new  ones,  you,  of  course,  understand 
the  new  ones  better. 

Then,  too,  it  seems  to  be  true  that  we  get 
very  great  pleasure  from  recognition  in 
reading,  just  as  we  do  from  recognition  of 
scenery,  cities,  friends  and  acquaintances, 
and  if  one  recognizes  and  understands  the 
allusions  in  old  books  and  the  quotations 
from  them  in  what  he  reads,  he  gets  much 
more  pleasure  therefrom. 

In  any  event,  put  a few  of  them  on  your 
shelves  for  the  children  to  see  and  read  if 
they  will. 


20 


The  good  work  novels  do 

Novels  have  been  increasingly  with  us  for 
a round  hundred  years.  For  several  thou- 
sand years  men  have  taken  pleasure  in  prose 
fiction.  Like  the  ruler,  the  priest,  the  trader, 
and  the  artist,  the  story-teller  has  been  with 
us  from  campfires  to  cities,  and  from  huts  to 
palaces.  We  cannot  shake  him  off  and  would 
not  if  we  could.  He  has  been  made  known 
to  ourselves.  At  his  best  he  has  interpreted 
life  for  us,  broadened  us  and  mellowed  us; 
at  his  poorest  he  has  diverted  us  and  dimmed 
the  memory  of  our  troubles. 

The  novel  today  seems  to  express  the 
present  man  more  fully  than  any  other  form 
of  literature.  It  can  touch  all  subjects,  ex- 
press all  feelings,  teach  all  doctrines.  Unless 
all  signs  fail,  it  is  sure  to  widen  its  field  still 
further,  to  become  still  more  widely  read, 
to  teach  us  more  readily,  to  set  forth  char- 
acter, history,  theories,  ideals  and  doctrines 
more  comprehensively  still. 

Beautiful  books 

Immediately  after  printing  was  invented, 
465  years  ago,  a few  very  beautiful  books 
were  printed.  This  was  because  the  early 
printers  naturally  tried  to  produce  with  type 
and  a press  as  beautiful  work  as  centuries 
of  practice  had  taught  the  copyists  to  make 
with  the  pen. 


21 


Soon,  however,  the  printers  had  to  com- 
pete for  speed  and  quantity  just  as  they  do 
now.  The  result  was  that,  after  about  the 
year  1500,  only  a few  very  carefully  printed 
and  very  skillfully  designed  books  were 
published  until  quite  recent  years. 

In  this  country  today  are  being  printed 
some  of  the  finest  volumes  ever  seen.  It 
would  be  worth  your  while  to  look  at  a 
few  of  them.  If  you  find  they  give  you 
pleasure,  you  should  buy  one  or  two,  or 
more  if  your  purse  permits.  They  are  works 
of  art,  just  as  are  good  paintings  and  good 
sculptures. 


22 


Your  bookstore 


If  this  article  of  Mr.  Dana’s 
makes  you  feel  like  using  our 
bookstore  to  learn  what  you  want 
to  about  your  kind  of  books, 
please  do  it.  We  want  to  help 
all  we  can.  That  is  our  business. 

We  are  trying  to  make  our 
service  as  broad  and  helpful  as  it 
can  be  ; to  tell  you  what  we  know 
about  books ; to  find  out  for  you 
what  we  don’t  happen  to  know; 
to  help  you  in  choosing  (if  you 
want  help);  to  have  on  hand  the 
books  most  wanted  ; to  get  any 
book ; to  sell  this  most  valuable 
merchandise  in  the  best  way, 
and — 

To  make  you  feel  at  home, 
whether  you  are  buying  or  not. 
People  who  like  books  or  think 
they  like  them,  or  think  they’d 
like  to  like  them,  are  always  wel- 
come at  this  store. 

Carson  Pirie  Scott  & Company 

Wabash  Avenue  Bookroom 
Chicago 


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